I am very pleased to say that August 2011 was yet another record month – especially since I took my first real vacation in quite some time! (I took 10 days off to travel back home to Vancouver, BC)
The trend in my income reports over the last few months, has probably surprised me, more than it has surprised you, my loyal reader.
As each month comes to a close (with yet another record), the very first thing on my mind, is how on earth am I going to beat that next month?
Thankfully, I seem to be able to figure out a few new ideas to put into action each month, and (so far at least) the trend of significant increases is alive and well 
Like in past income reports, in this report, I’m going to share with you the key activities that I undertook this month, what worked and what didn’t. You will notice that this month’s report is much shorter than the last two months and the reason for this is simple – I could tell from my analytics that the average time on the income report page was nowhere near long enough to read all the content that I’d painstakingly written. So, this month, I’m going to “cut to the chase”, as it were.
As always, if you think my income report is worthy news for your followers, please tweet and share on your Facebook wall by clicking on the buttons over on the left. Thanks, you rock!!
If this is your first time reading one of my income reports and you are wondering why I publish them, the reason is that I believe in being super transparent in my business – almost as though I was a public company. A public company has to share everything about their performance and it doesn’t seem to hurt them, so I doubt that it’ll hurt me either.
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Key Activities in August
I have to admit that my largest single activity in August was a 10 day trip that I took to return home to Vancouver, BC to visit with friends and family. Finally taking some time away from my computer was much needed, and long overdue!
Beyond the holiday, I can’t say that I really put anything new into action, other than to continue to build more niche sites and improving the content in Niche Site Mastery.
Speaking of activity, now that Labor Day has passed, I think for most people, their level of motivation to get cracking has probably increased. It was with that in mind, that I recently wrote about the importance of your mental game, in addition to your strategy and tactics. If you haven’t checked out the post yet, I’d love to hear what you think of it.
Income Breakdown
- Adsense
- Total: $920
- Last Month: $859
- Difference: $61
- Up 7%
- Affiliate Earnings
- Amazon: $130
- Backlink Battleplan: $29
- Blog Blueprint: $26
- CTR Theme: $92
- Focus & Action: $32
- Hostgator: $100
- Namecheap: $3
- SECockpit: $455
- SEOPressor: $65
- The Best Spinner: $49
- WPZonbuilder: $25
- Video Marketing Blueprints: $47
- Total: $1,053
- Last Month: $1,001
- Difference: $52
- Up .5%
- Niche Site Mastery
- Total: $3,454
- Last Month: $2,205
- Difference: $1,249
- Up 57% (to learn how I’m using WSO’s for such huge gains, buy this course from Shane Melaugh)
- Total: $3,454
- Link Building Services
- Total: $304
- Last Month: $366
- Difference: -$62
- Down 17%
- Total: $304
- Gross Total in June
- Total: $5,731
- Last Month: $4,431
- Difference: $1,300
- Up 29%
- Total: $5,731
Plans and Goals for September
Now that summer is over (although I must confess that here in San Diego, summer doesn’t really ever end), I have a great many things that I want to accomplish.
Before I get to those, however, I want to share with you how I did versus my July goals:
Website Stats:
- Total visits to OIL to exceed 6,000 – achieved
- New Subscribers: 300 – not achieved (only got 219)
- New Niche Site Mastery members: 25 - achieved
- Increase total revenue by at least 35% - achieved
In August, I planned to:
- take a vacation - achieved
- get the beta of the backlinking service out the door – not achieved
- create some new content on NSM - achieved
- spend more time looking on Flippa for some more sites to buy (looked didn’t buy any)
- produce 2 podcasts - achieved
- publish 8 blog posts here on OIL - achieved
- launch another WSO of some kind - achieved
Goals for September
- Launch an affiliate program for Niche Site Mastery
- Begin to use webinars once again as a means of increasing NSM membership
- Increase total income by 20%
- Publish 4 more podcasts
- Launch more 10 niche sites
As always, I’m extremely grateful to all of my readers for helping to make this happen. Without you, I don’t know where I’d be, so please accept my big fat THANK YOU!
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31 Responses to August 2011 Income Report
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Who’s Trent?
Having sold his last business for over a million bucks in 2008 by the age of 38, Trent has since immersed himself in the study of internet marketing by going out and doing. Continue reading...
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It looks like you mixed up this month and last months totals for adsense (either that or it was a decrease rather than an increase.
haha, indeed I did. Thanks for pointing out my error.
Hi Trent,
Just want to say great site and thanks for all the info.
You are very welcome
Impressive! Keep up the great work.
I’m from Vancouver, BC as well. Seems like a lot of big names online are from Vancouver for some reason or another.
Now if only I can grow my business to make that kind of earnings as well I’d be really happy.
You can…it just takes a real commitment. No TV, socializing on the weekends only, and ever night is time to work on your business. I have dont it in less than a year, so you can, too!
Hi
With your adsense sites did you do any work on them or increase there number in August? And how many sites were live to generate that revenue number?
San Diego is a beutifull place thats for sure, probably been 8 years or so since i was last there. On a tour a guide said it snow once way back in hostroy
regards
I didn’t really do much to the Adsense sites. I just launched 5 more.
Hi
Good to keep empire building.
Did you outsource their production except for keyword research selection?
regards
Yes, I handle kw research and then outsource everything last step after that.
congratulations on another fantastic month. the trend is definitely in the right direction Trent
Thanks Sunil!
Good going Trent. Like the other Income reports, very motivational.
1 of the best thing I learned from your blog was using SECockpit to revisit keywords and sites I initially targeted using Market Samurai.
Even though they were seeing some clicks and traffic it was nowhere compared to what Market Samurai claimed.
After checking SECockpit, now I realized why they were seeing little results.
Anyway thanks… and thanks for the LinkPushing Recommendation as well.
Keep the fire burning!
Hi Trends,
Glad to hear that my ideas have been so helpful for you! Thanks so much
Trent, always nice to see numbers going up, did your expenses also rise or stay flat? May I ask what percentage of the gross are your expenses?
Hi Ric,
Expenses directly related to the income, don’t change much and last month were about 20% of gross. As I’m always building new sites, there are more expenses than that, however, I don’t consider the cost to build new sites as ‘overhead’ because I don’t need to build any to maintain the current level of income.
Thanks for sharing your inspiring growth. The only thing I am concerned about is that it appears that if I am only capable of producing AdSense sites, then my income will not grow “as fast” as if I were able to also provide additional services or “sell the shovel and services for the goldminers”?
That is the very nature of Adsense. It grows slower, for sure, HOWEVER, you don’t have to do anything to keep it coming in
If you are selling shovels and services to goldminers, there is ongoing work and advertising costs involved. For me, I use the profits from NSM and this blog to pay for the development of new Adsense (and other) sites.
Well done! I’ve started work on 4 Adsense sites thanks to this blog – not had a click yet but it’s early days!
Thanks.
How old are the sites? How much traffic are they getting?
Very new and not getting any traffic yet. I’m trying out a couple of different themes but as yet no traffic so can’t say how they work regarding CTR.
Early days although at the back of my mind I can’t help thinking I picked too competitive niches.
Yes, if you haven’t picked easy enough keywords, you have a loooonnng road ahead….
SeCockpit said it wasn’t too bad but we shall see.
That’s some great progress Trent. Hit a lot of your To-Dos and achieved some great earnings. Kudos!
Thanks Tom!
Hey Trent,
How many sites do you have to make just under 1,000 with adsense ? iv got 5 but not making any money yet but there about to hit page one so money should start to go up until i reach first spot, but i have limited funds so was thinking of just making 5 websites per month until i start to see a return or iv been thinking of concentrating on just building my current sites into big sites with 50+ pages what would you say was better tons of small sites or maybe 3 sites with 50+ pages and few small sites?
Cheers
Paul
Hi Paul,
There is no right or wrong way to make money with Adsense. You could have one site that earns just shy of $1,000/month on its own, or you could have many smaller sites. Plus, your sites don’t have to hit #1 to make money. They just need traffic.
So long as you pick easy keywords and build sites that are attractive and filled with unique content, you should easily start to make money within 90 days…plus, if you need to get an ROI, so may want to even sell a few sites. To see what I mean, please read this post.
Just want to know how your course is different from the Niche Profit course that you took. Do you show how to build Amazon sites as well? Just trying to pick between the two
Hi Sara,
Chris’s course is primarily video and devoted entirely to Amazon. My course has a mix of video, audio, and written word and can be used for either, although I will say my lessons are biased towards Adsense. You might want to hold off a day or two because I’m going to introduce a promotion on Monday where you can get Hostgator to pay me for your membership, so you can get a big discount
Hey Trent,
Thanks for answering my question. It’s Monday, and I am looking for the promotion. Have you released it yet?
Working on it today…